300 Recent Ornithological Publications. 



Hartlaub, F. Heine, and others. Dr. J. GundlacVs account 

 (p. 297) of the nidification of the Cuban Palm-Swift [Tachornis 

 iradii) (which he maintains is different from T. phcenicobia, 

 Gosse, of Jamaica) is curious, and agrees with Mr. Gosse's ac- 

 curate notes on the Jamaican species in his ' Birds of Jamaica ' 

 (p. 58). Does it not go to show the relationship of the Cypse- 

 lida to the Trochilida ? 



Of the new series of the ' Journal ' edited by Dr. J. Cabanis 

 and Dr. E. Baldamus, we have seen the first number for the pre- 

 sent year. It commences with the first portion of an elaborate 

 article by Dr. G. Hartlaub, of Bremen, on the Birds of Mada- 

 gascar, From this wonderful island, which it seems almost 

 justifiable to consider, with I. G. St. Hilaire, as a zoological 

 region of itself, though it is preferable to class it as an abode 

 of exaggerated* ^Ethiopian forms, 156 species of birds are now 

 known to Dr. Hartlaub, of which no less than 89 are, as far 

 as is hitherto known, peculiar to the island f- Of generic forms 

 not less than 25 are purely Madagascarian — a still greater test, 

 perhaps, of the eccentricity of its fauna. There are likewise 

 some contributions to our knowledge of the Great Auk {Alca 

 impennis), a subject which is now attracting much attention, in 

 the present Number, and other articles, one of which will be re- 

 cognized as familiar in an English dress to most of our readers. 



The Annual of the Zoological Society ' Natura Artis Magis- 

 tra ' of Amsterdam for the present year contains an article by 

 Professor Schlegel " over eenige in Nederland waargenomen 

 vremde Vogelsoorten^' (upon some foreign species of birds taken 

 in Holland), in which some account is given of a pair of Syr- 

 rhaptes paradoxus, observed in the Dunes near Zandvoort, at 

 the end of August last. One of them was shot in the beginning 

 of October, as we have already stated J, and the specimen is now 

 in the collection of the Society at Amsterdam. 



* Confer Journ. Proc. Linn. Soc. (Zool.) ii. p. 139. 



t In the Mammalia the proportion is still greater — ont of 50 species 

 inhabiting Madagascar, only one or two being likewise met with on the 

 mainland. 



X Ibis, 1860, p. 109. 



